Town Square

Toyota SUV crashes into house on Park Boulevard

A silver Toyota RAV4 sports utility vehicle smashed through a speed-limit sign this morning, crashed through the hedge and fence of a residence on the corner of Charleston Road and Park Boulevard and drove into the house, fully immersing itself in the building.

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Posted by Enough!
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jan 31, 2013 at 10:16 am

SLOW DOWN! Many of the houses shown in the pictures have converted the front parts of their houses into living quarters due to the ridiculous rents in Palo Alto. Somebody could have been killed. Grow up and slow down.

Posted by Mr.Recycle
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Jan 31, 2013 at 2:49 pm

@Do something already - Is the Rav 4 the hip new car with millionaires these days?

I guess as you drive through someone's living room, even 1 mph is too fast. However, it seems like speeding is an ancillary issue to the bigger problem of terrible drivers (the brake pedal is the one on the left).

Palo Alto needs money, we have bad drivers, put the police on notice to aggressively cite speeders, red light+stop sign runners, failing to signal-ers, and kill two birds with one stone. Might take about a month to eliminate budget shortfalls? Then a repeat operation in another month or so to mop up the arrogant, and we'd have enough $$ to easily carry us thru the HSR, Calif Ave AND Newell Bridge debacles with money left over. We could also mandate anyone caught offending the same or multiple traffic rules &gt; "X" times/mo or 6mos gets a really big fine...perhaps doubling for the second offense and each time thereafter along with mandatory jail time after, say, 3 offenses? Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but while we can't mandate stupidity or arrogance, we CAN decide to mandate consequences while improving public safety. And extra money into city coffers wouldn't hurt either. Unless the city isn't held accountable for what it DOES with that money, like taking out trees on Calif Ave or okay'ing boondoggles.

Posted by MV Resident
a resident of Mountain View
on Jan 31, 2013 at 4:05 pm

Curious.

It looks like the driver drove against two lanes of opposing traffic (westbound Charleston just past the train tracks), hit the speed limit sign on the southwest corner of the Park/Charleston intersection, then proceeded to hit the hedge and telephone pole guy-wire on the northwestern corner, before plowing into the house.

The driver might have accidentally pressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brakes at some point during this incident.

Posted by Brian Q.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jan 31, 2013 at 8:28 pm

Don't kid yourself: that was a space ship, not a "RAV4!" What they didn't show was the dude in the space suit being hauled from the wreckage! Life Flight probably shipped him to Area 51 for repeat flight school. It's easy to confuse the gas and the brake in a spaceship too, sadly. We need these aliens off our streets. Maybe higher penalties for DWA would do the trick.